Bread of Life

I battle with viewing bread as an evil or a basic staple in life.  So many of my friends have eliminated gluten from their diet that I feel like I am committing a bodily crime by eating wheat.  However, they physically cannot tolerate gluten, while I can, so I have to tell myself that it isn’t evil for me.

Today I decided that bread is just fine to have in my diet.  If Jesus called himself the Bread of Life, then bread must be important and okay (and wonderful) to include in my diet.  This decision might change, as I haven’t done very much research on bread (for example, ancient breads might have been more healthy than commercial breads/flour today).

I have made many sweet breads in my life, but my first time making bread bread was about a year ago.  I found a good recipe for beginners and it is in my recipe library.  It is called Lazy Woman Bread.  I’ve made this bread many times in the past year.  It involves mixing with a spoon, and allowing to rise, and baking.  It is pretty simple.  While the bread has a great flavor, the texture never was my favorite, but for someone who was helpless when it came to bread (and I didn’t have any fancy equipment like a dough hook), I didn’t have much choice.

A few months ago, after buying several loaves of French and Italian bread for $1.65ish each, I was determined to make my own French loaf.  My recipe that I have for French bread isn’t hard, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it, but it is a long process and messy.  Basically, it involves kneading the dough 25 minutes, letting it rise an hour, turning it out, covering and letting rise 10 minutes, then rolling out, then making it in to the loaf, then letting rise again for 45 minutes, then baking 20 minutes, then removing, then baking 20 more minutes.  I just tried to find the online recipe to link to and found this recipe instead, which actually seems easier than my recipe.  The loaves look a bit more artisan than my loaves, but they look pretty delicious.  I might try this recipe in the future.

Last week I really wanted a delicious bread that was easy and quick.  I didn’t want the flavor and texture of Lazy Woman Bread, and I didn’t have time to make my French loaves.  I found a simple bread recipe in the book Make the Bread, Buy the Butter that is going to be my new go-to recipe!  I will let you check the book out.  Basically, you mix the ingredients together and let the dough rise for 2 hours, then bake it!  The only negative to the recipe is I can’t make it on too much of a whim, but it doesn’t require too much planning and is amazing!